Crayola Crayons Binney & Smith Written and Illustrated by: Loleita Cruz

Crayola Crayons 1800’s Children want to express their creativity more than anything in the world. This has been true for nearly a hundred years ,and is largely due to the efforts of one American company. Edwin Binney and Harold Smith founded Binney and Smith, INC. in New York City in the late 1800’s. At first they specialized in coloring --- including the pigments that made country barns red and automobile tires black. Later, they started to make slate pencils for students. At the St. Louis World Exhibition in 1902 they won a gold medal for their new product for teachers: the first dustless chalk. When touring schools with these two items company salesman thought that they needed safe affordable color crayons. At this time, wax crayons were very big , dull-colored and clumsy, and used mainly in industry. But Binney and Smith used a combination of paraffin wax and industrial pigments to create  

Inventors: Binney & Smith Binney and Smith invented Crayola Crayons. Binney was born in Westchester County, New York in 1866. Smith was born in London, England in 1860. Binney ran his dads chemical company. In my opinion, it sounds fun to work with your dad. Binney married a schoolteacher. I think that it must have been cool to have a wife that was a schoolteacher. Did you know that Binney and Smith made crayons that smell like food? One of the best things about their crayons are they aren’t toxic. That means they won’t make you sick. In addition to crayons they are also responsible for inventing Silly Putty, too. Smith died in 1931 at the age 71 and Binney died in Gainesville, Florida three years later on December 17,1934.

March 5, 2012   Linden Elementary School 700 Robertsville Rd. Oak Ridge, TN 37830 Dear Mr. Binney and Mr. Smith, I never knew how important crayons were, but now that I think about it their very helpful. If you guys didn’t make crayons artist couldn’t make art . I just want to say thank you for making crayons. If I didn’t have crayons I couldn’t make art, because crayons are my favorite art tool. Thank you for making the world colorful. Your friend, Loleita Cruz